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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25728133">rebodied</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_IPRE/pseuds/The_IPRE'>The_IPRE</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Archive 81 (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, POV Alternating, Static Man Gets His Body Back</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:55:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,210</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25728133</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_IPRE/pseuds/The_IPRE</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Night falls and still the body breathes on, the sorcerer and the clerk both unable to tear their eyes away from the tenuous miracle.</p><p>Stars rise and fall and shift and still the two stay awake, the sorcerer’s hands wrapped around a mug while thoughts spin, the clerk’s fingers tapping and voice lifting in a lilting hum.</p><p>Against each of their better judgements, their eyes begin to slip shut.</p><p>Lying on the table, the eyes of the man once known as Arthur flicker open for the first time in over a decade.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>rebodied</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>me: hi morgan is trans and autistic thank you for your time</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So that’s...me.”</p><p>“Yep.” Morgan popped the word, arms crossed as she looked at the man lying on the table with a critical eye.</p><p>Nicholas leaned forward, one hand resting on his cane while the other scratched at his chin. “Well, it’s no Tom Hardy, but…”</p><p>“Dude, at this point I will take whatever I can get my staticky hands on.” Static Man looked at where he had pretended his hands were for over a decade, flexed muscles that weren’t there. “I am going to miss the teeth, though. Always useful to have another set of chompers or two.”</p><p>Morgan sighed a familiar sigh, one that caught wind of a well-trod argument. “I’m not growing in an extra set of shark’s teeth. No, not even though it will make you look ‘cool as hell.’ Besides, the body is done. Your window to convince me has closed.”</p><p>Static Man would swear that he could hear a smile curling around her words, which was enough of a win in his book. “I could just have jars of my own teeth lying around, though! You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be a powermove.”</p><p>“Well, perhaps when you dissipate, your current teeth might be left over. I don’t exactly have any way of guaranteeing that, but if they are.” Nicholas shrugged. “I’ve got a few mason jars if you would like.”</p><p>“See, that is what I’m <em> talking </em> about!” Static Man crowed. “I’m gonna hold you to that, Nicholas.”</p><p>He inclined his head. “I would expect nothing less.”</p><p>“Well, as charming as this is, the body is fully prepared to be inhabited. Fully grown, and ripe for the awakening.” Morgan shifted her weight, put her calloused fingers to a throat where no pulse beat. “We don’t want it to become overripe.”</p><p>“You know what? I agree with that. As I have always said, my body is a temple, and I don’t want it to be one of those old rotting ones.”</p><p>Nicholas' voice was flat, but Static Man had learned to pick out the humor in it. “I don’t believe that you’ve ever said that.”</p><p>“You’ve got me there!” Static Man looked down at his body – well, looked as best as he could without any eyes or sensory organs. <em> Fuck </em>, it was going to be weird to have eyes again. He took a lungless breath, edges blurring and spiking as his teeth chattered somewhere around where his heart should have been. “So I just- what, schlorp on in?”</p><p>Nicholas sighed, and Static Man grinned. “Well, that is not how I would have put it, but essentially? Yes. Though, this does fall more in Morgan’s area of expertise than mine.”</p><p>“It will probably feel strange, and the body may not want to take you at first, but that shouldn’t last.” The sound of the tapping of Morgan’s fingers against her arms seemed to fill the room, keeping a steady pace as she looked over the body once more and then nodded. “Just schlorp in. This is your body, it will work with you as long as you work with it.”</p><p>“That is <em>not</em> as reassuring as you intended it to be,” Static Man said, tossing his shoulders back and giving his staticky form one last wiggle. It was going to be nice to have flesh and real bones again. “See you on the other side.”</p><p>For the last time, every tooth in his body grinned, he gave his friends what could charitably be called a salute, and Static Man flowed into the figure laying before him.</p><hr/><p>Morgan wouldn’t exactly say that the body she built for Static Man was her <em> magnum opus</em>, but it wasn’t half bad, either. </p><p>She had shaped it with his advice, trimming and tying to help it grow into the shapes he asked for. Honestly, she had been a bit surprised at how...normal he wanted it to be. Beyond the jokes about sharks teeth and goats horns, they had landed on a body that was a little shorter than average, a little stockier. </p><p>It looked like a person in all of the ways that Static Man had seemed to shy away from, solid and certain and real.</p><p>Morgan had shaped her own body as well, using hormones to modify after the fact rather than building it from the ground up, but still. She knew what it was to claw who you were out of handfuls of clay, hoping that what came out the other side was how you had imagined it to be.</p><p>Watching as Static Man’s form buzzed and coalesced, shuddering teeth to the floor as it pressed into the body’s mouth, she could only hope that she had captured him properly.</p><p>“Would you look at that. Teeth.”</p><p>“Teeth, indeed.” Nicholas picked one up from where it had fallen to the wooden tabletop, pressed his thumb against the edge and winced when it bled. “Do you know how long it will take before he...I’m not sure of the words. Wakes up?”</p><p>Morgan pursed her lips. “I really couldn’t say. For how much I learned on the Blacktop, I never really made a body like this before. Walking untread territories, as far as I can tell.”</p><p>Nicholas’ face did something strange, but Morgan was pretty terrible at reading expressions at the best of times, and this was hardly that. Instead of trying to decipher whatever overcomplicated thoughts were beginning to build in his head, she put her fingers to the body’s wrist, skin still cold and unmoving against hers. </p><p>“The inhabitation hasn’t really started yet. If you were planning on actually putting his teeth in a jar, now would probably be a good time.”</p><p>Nicholas nodded and left, the fading tapping of his cane leaving the room empty. It felt quieter than it should have been, the body lying there still and unmoving and completely silent. </p><p>The silence began to crawl, inching along Morgan’s skin until she pushed herself away from the wall she had settled against, footsteps tapping and fingernails scratching and hum building. It was slow, but it filled the room up well enough as she circled around the table, even now double checking her work. </p><p>The body was still enough that she likely would have missed the movement if she hadn’t been looking at it, but Morgan’s eyes caught sight of a twitching finger, flexing almost involuntarily.</p><p>She came to a stop, taking a wrist in her hands to measure the pulse before it was ripped out of her grip.</p><p>The body was convulsing, arching off of the table, ankles scrabbling and hands clenching around nothing. A shower of teeth fell to the floor and Morgan stepped away, gaze still intently trained on the body. </p><p>Nicholas clattered into the room, wide eyes narrowing when he saw the body seizing. “What do we do?” Even as the grip on his cane grew white knuckled, he carefully set the mason jars on the counter next to him, shoulders tense. Morgan could almost taste his scaffolded thoughts from across the room.</p><p>“There isn’t really anything that we can do, not right now. This is between Static Man and the vessel, we just have to wait and see.” </p><p>Nicholas’ jaw tightened, and they both winced as the body’s head came down with a <em> thud </em> on the table. “Shit,” he muttered, but even as he began shrugging off the jacket the body had already stilled.</p><p>Morgan stepped forward to take the pulse again, repetitive motion a familiar grounding point. Nicholas raised his eyebrows at her, putting one hand on the body’s shoulder, and Morgan let her mouth quirk into a smile. “It looks like they worked things out.”</p><p>There was a faint laugh at that, but it quickly faded when the body remained unmoving other than the steady rise and fall of its chest.</p><p><em> His </em> chest now, probably. Even now, Static Man’s electricity had shocked the heart into working, sparks running along nerves and beginning to light up the brain. Blood was flowing and muscles were warming and even though he wasn’t yet awake to know it, the body was making itself into a home. </p><p>Morgan would never let Static Man know, but the sight of the body lying there, breath and nerves and blood all churning along, was one of the most incredible that she had ever seen.</p><p>No point in telling him that, though; his ego didn’t need any inflating.</p><p>Crossing her arms and tapping her fingers to the music of actual genuine life, Morgan let herself feel proud.</p><hr/><p>Time passes. </p><p>A shoulder is shaken and a no-longer-accurate name is repeated, but when the body provides no response, the sorcerer simply grits his teeth and presses on.</p><p>Teeth are gathered into mason jars, lids are screwed on tightly with the satisfying <em> shink </em> of metal, and the glasses are placed on windowsills to let sunlight glint iridescent off of the not-quite-bones.</p><p>The mechanic and hostess and clerk eventually settles into the familiar ritual of making dinner, even though she is not usually the one for rituals. The sorcerer stays in the room with the now-living-body, keeping vigil until he is taken away to eat, standing, in the kitchen.</p><p>Night falls and still the body breathes on, the sorcerer and the clerk both unable to tear their eyes away from the tenuous miracle.</p><p>Stars rise and fall and shift and still the two stay awake, the sorcerer’s hands wrapped around a mug while thoughts spin, the clerk’s fingers tapping and voice lifting in a lilting hum.</p><p>Against each of their better judgements, their eyes begin to slip shut.</p><p>Lying on the table, the eyes of the man once known as Arthur flicker open for the first time in over a decade.</p><hr/><p>Nicholas had run out of coffee an hour ago.</p><p>Of course, after how he survived college, he had practically built up an immunity to it. It worked as more of a placebo than anything at this point, but it still did enough to keep him awake when he needed it.</p><p>Watching to see if the man he had finally admitted was his friend would wake up, he needed it then more than ever. </p><p>It was past four in the morning, though, and the tension that held him awake also thrummed loudly enough to keep him from getting any work done. Instead, Nicholas simply sat, kept watch, and did his best to keep his eyelids from falling.</p><p>Then, there was a gasp, stirring movement, and he felt more awake than he had all night.</p><p>Nicholas used his cane to tap the leg of the chair Morgan was curled up on, knowing better than to touch her to wake her up. He let her come to consciousness on her own terms as he moved to the table as quickly as he could, hand hovering over the body. “Static Man? Static Man, are you alright?”</p><p>Eyes opened, dark brown and for a moment seeming to glow in the dark. “I’m Arthur...do I know you?”</p><p>Nicholas’ throat caught around the inhale and he pulled his hand back, heard Morgan getting to her feet behind him, and even as he began trying to flick through the possibilities, memory loss and memory gain, he felt frozen solid.</p><p>Then, Arthur’s expression cracked into a grin, and then a laugh. “Dude, I’m just fucking with you. Still me in here.”</p><p>“You are an <em> asshole</em>,” Nicholas said, punctuating the last word with a punch to Arthur’s shoulder, but he felt his normally controlled expression beginning to fall to a grin. </p><p><em> It worked</em>.</p><p>“Nice one.” Morgan gave a thumbs up, the flash of teeth behind her smile as loud as if she had been jumping for joy.</p><p>“Thank you! See, somebody respects my craft.” Arthur sat up, almost immediately putting a hand to his head with a wince and a groan. If Static Man had been expressive before, he was practically a technicolor show when settled back in his body. “Hurts like a motherfucker, though. <em> God</em>, I have not missed having headaches.”</p><p>That grin was back, revealing a mouthful of genuine human teeth, albeit ones that were a bit sharp around the canines, and Nicholas felt caught between them.</p><p>For years, he had known what they were to each other. Sorcerer and vassal, neatly outlined relationship. Static Man worked for him, and Nicholas worked to get him a body. Now, though, with that body real and present and Static Man gone, the borders that had made it easy enough to ignore everything else were gone. </p><p>Arthur, back in his body and glorious in every movement for having a body to move, threw compliments to Morgan for the new and ‘smoking hot bod’. Morgan, hand once again in another thumbs up, pressed her lips together in a smile as she checked for his pulse once more, just to be certain.</p><p>Nicholas, a smile of his own sitting uncertain on his face, resolved to bring up questions of vassalhood and friendship and employment at a later date.</p><p>For now, as the sun crept closer to rising and Arthur almost collapsed the first time he tried to stand on his new legs and they were able to revel in the rosy light of success, wonders of <em> what next </em> were quite neatly put aside.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Feel free to leave a comment or kudos, or come talk to me on tumblr at <a href="https://the-ipre.tumblr.com">the-ipre</a>!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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